Macromedia's latest software release is a slight departure from the company's familiar Web-design offerings. Having said that, Captivate 1.0 is nevertheless one of the best tools for creating rich and complex tutorials, simulations and e-learning demos. Captivate will help both businesses and e-learning organisations to reduce the overhead involved in scripting, planning and editing, allowing you to create rich interactive tutorials in days rather than weeks. Those looking for a simple set of tools to create simulations, demonstrations and e-learning components quickly for online training, sales and marketing demos, or end-user support should look no further than this aggressively-priced application.

Pros: Excellent interface; supports key e-learning standards
Cons: Requires Activation; runs on Windows only


Captivate 1.0 is an extremely easy-to-use application that allows you to create interactive simulations and software demonstrations for desktop and Web-based applications - including .NET - that can include audio, animations, interactions and more. Demos created in Captivate can be published as Flash (SWF) applications, as Macromedia Breeze presentations or as cross-platform executables. You can also print handouts of the demos from within Microsoft's Word, which is ideal for teaching environments.

Whilst created a software demonstration may sound complicated, all you actually have to do is click the software's 'Record' button and Captivate automatically records all on-screen actions - including editable mouse movements, text captions, and scored click boxes - and then creates an interactive Flash simulation. You can then add text captions, narration, and e-learning interactions (such as data-entry fields and customisable quizzes), without having to have any programming or multimedia authoring knowledge. Captivate also supports key e-learning standards such as SCORM 1.2 and AICC, so it can integrate with any Learning Management System (LMS), Macromedia's Authorware, or Questionmark Perception.

Captivate isn't a new product, but is in fact the latest iteration of RoboDemo, a product the software gained through its acquisition of eHelp in October 2003 for $65m (around £35.5m). The name change is intended to emphasise that Captivate is as much about simulation as demonstration. Having said that, the new version has a new look and feel and tighter integration with other Macromedia products, including the excellent Flash MX 2004 and Breeze. Important new features include a revamped timeline, expanded audio capability and support for Unicode and 508 Accessibility.

Tighter integration between Captivate and Breeze (Internet collaboration software) means you can make the Breeze experience more useful by including interactive software simulations and demonstrations. For instance, you can supplement presentations by inserting Captivate SWF files directly into Breeze presentations (the files become part of the presentation so viewers do not have to download a plug-in or launch a separate application), try to increase training effectiveness by adding interactive simulations to live meetings (all participants can interact fully with the content and practice the procedures being taught in real time), and Breeze users can now publish Captivate projects directly to a Breeze server to be distributed through a standard Web browser.

Flash developers can save production time, too. Using Captivate's on-screen recording feature you can save actions quickly and easily, then import the resulting Captivate SWF files directly into Flash for further enhancement, ActionScript coding, or integration into a larger project, thus eliminating the need to capture screen shots manually or create mouse tweens and text captions in Flash. Flash export is now an integrated feature and not a separate module, so all Captivate projects can be directly exported into Flash. In addition, clicking an inserted SWF file in Captivate automatically launches Flash MX 2004. After the file is edited in Flash, it is automatically updated in Captivate, which helps to streamline the workflow and saving more valuable development time.

By using Captivate and Flash MX 2004 together you can develop interactive software simulations with advanced branching or scripted logic, produce feature demonstrations of software applications enhanced with Flash effects, integrate editable screen recordings into existing Flash projects, augment Captivate projects with additional media types such as QuickTime or Flash Video, create demonstration or simulation DVDs, or even extend projects to control input devices such as digital cameras.

Creating projects with Captivate is relatively quick and easy thanks to the way you can get results by following just a few basic steps. For instance, once you've planned your 'movie' using storyboards, scripts, or any other organisational material, you then have to set initial recording options and movie preferences. Once you've done this you are then ready to record your movie by capturing on-screen activity.

You can create a new movie from scratch or use of the templates provided. Once you've stopped recording, you can import other files types into the Captivate movie, add captions, images, sound, animated text, and play around with lots of other types of editing features. If necessary, you can also change your movie and object timing using the excellent Timeline, preview your movie and then publish it in a variety of formats.

Working with Captivate is done using two views: Storyboard or Timline. In Storyboard mode your project appears as an ordered series of individual slides - much like a real movie. The Slides view displays thumbnail images of every slide in the project. You can drag-and-drop slides to re-order them, or double-click a single slide to edit it. You can also delete slides as needed, or record and insert additional slides anywhere you like. You never have to re-record an entire project to fix errors or make changes.

The Timeline view is visual representation of all objects on a slide, thus providing you with an easy way to view, at a high level, the relationship of slides to each other. With the Timeline you can organise objects and control the timing of objects. For example, on a slide that contains a caption, an image, and a highlight box, you can display the caption, then the image three seconds later, and then the highlighted box four seconds after that. Similar to a video-editing application, the Timeline also shows any audio associated with the slide or with objects on the slide, letting you co-ordinate the timing of audio with objects.

You can also zoom in or out on the Timeline and use it for instant previewing after making slide changes, scrub the playhead to preview a small section of the Timeline, or even drag-and-drop layers to change the order of objects and move one in front of, or behind, the other.

There are number of other options available when it comes to recording a movie. The recording process is actually the same for each type, but each method has its unique differences. For instance, you can record all on-screen action within a single running application or multiple applications, record all selected action with a custom-defined area (definable by width and size), or record a blank frame in a size you specify.

This option may be useful if you want to create an empty movie and then import, say, PowerPoint slides from another movie or still images. Regardless of which option you choose, creating, editing and distributing an interactive simulation or demonstration is a breeze.

BIOS, Dec 20, 04 | Print | Send | Comments (0) | Posted In Developer